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Better get your RX canoe now!

I read your article (and thanks!) but I don't understand. Was the company that made the Royalex all this time subsidizing the production? They said that the change would save $25 million, even to produce a loss of that much, seems that it must have been a bunch of Rx going out the door. Now, I don't know much of anything but why not raise the price of the stuff? I'd think the demand is still there, what with all the people making canoes, kayaks and what not.
Closing the plant and sending all those people home looks like the last thing to do.

Those are just questions into the air, Yellow Canoe, I'm not aiming them at you for goodness sakes!

Perplexed, Rob

P.S. maybe my old town camper won't seem so heavy now that it's one of the last.
Naw, that sucker still is 25 pounds more than my Swift.
 
Spartech made Rx sheets for years. Last year Poly One bought out SparTech. Rx fit into Spartechs business plans and does not in the much bigger Poly One corporation. So its not the same company that had been making Rx for years and years.
 
Pretty interesting to see what becomes of this. I was thinking about selling an old Dagger Reflection but I'll hold on to her a while longer. I was also thinking about replacing my Bell Prodigy with another Royalex WW boat, but now maybe this is the push I need purchase a Millbrook WW boat. In some respects, it sometimes seems like the industry is dying a very slow death. Should be interesting to see what becomes of this. I might have to share this story with my Wife so that there's less resistance when I decide to have a garage built for building wood canoes. Barry
 
Hopefully someone will continue to manufacture Royalex. It would be sad to see people lose jobs due to lack of supplies. Maybe this will encourage someone to develop the next wonder hull material.
 
Maybe this will encourage someone to develop the next wonder hull material.

Hey, I got it! What about that fabric stuff DuPont developed and was used for bulletproof vests?!? Oh wait... uhh nm...

Call me crazy but it seems that one could make even tougher boats than Rx using the right resin and aramid fibers. I'm impressed how flexible it can be, I'm sure with more development one could have a composite that would be as flexible, strong and light (lighter?) as Rx. The cost will never be the same though... more labor intensive production and expensive materials are probably the reason they aren't available today. Anyone that wants a kevlar boat wants it light. And to make them really light they need to be thin and use less resin. The heavier ones tend to be stiffened up with glass. I would think for WW play boats that will see impacts you would want to keep them more pliable so they will absorb the energy rather than crack.

All that may change unless someone picks up the production of the materials... either that or you'll have to live with slightly heavier polymer alternatives, which is my guess of what will happen mainly because of cost.
 
Millbrook and Colden make composites that are used for serious whitewater. But both are more expensive than poly.
 
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